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AND NOW, THE P.U.-LITZER PRIZES FOR 1996

By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon

It's time now to reveal the winners of the P.U.-litzer
Prizes for 1996.

This annual award recognizes some of America's most foul
media achievements. Every year, for the past half-decade, we have
pored through hundreds of submissions. In 1996, we've found many
deserving entries. But only a few journalists can win a P.U.-
litzer.

The head of U.S. News & World Report has excelled at casting
aspersions on the Islamic faith. But Zuckerman reached a new low
in his June 10 column, declaring that rhetoric by Palestinian
leader Yasir Arafat "echoes the doctrine of the prophet Muhammad
of making treaties with enemies while he is weak, violating them
when he is strong." Offended Muslims pointed out to the magazine
that the Koran requires the faithful to keep their pledges.

JUMPING THE GUN PRIZE -- Clyde Haberman of the New York Times

With scant information on what caused the deadly TWA
explosion near Long Island last summer, Haberman wrote a July 19
Times news article that began: "This may seem to be jumping the
gun, since so much is still not known about what brought down
Trans World Airlines Flight 800. But it is probably time for
Americans to accept terrorism as a fact of life requiring certain
impositions, like personal searches in public places, to preserve
communal safety." In other words, it's never too soon to jettison
some liberties.

CHAMPION OF THE OVERDOG PRIZE -- ABC TV correspondent John
Stossel

In a September speech to a group of conservative attorneys,
Stossel -- whose recent specials and "20/20" segments have
targeted unions, consumer lawyers and government regulation --
spoke of why he'd moved away from consumer reporting: "I got sick
of it. I also now make so much money I just lost interest in
saving a buck on a can of peas." Stossel, who now functions as
ABC's televangelist for what he calls "the beauties of the free
market," told his audience: "I certainly would encourage any of
you who knows somebody who buys advertising on television to say,
`Please buy a couple of ads on those Stossel specials.'" Markets
certainly are things of beauty.

TALK RADIO BOMBS-AWAY AWARD -- John Dayl of KFYI, Phoenix

In July, on Arizona's second-biggest talk station, host Dayl
offered these words about U.S. government employees targeted in
terrorist bombings like Oklahoma City: "These people who work in
those buildings are not innocent victims. If they work in the
Federal Building, they're the very people that are typing the
letters, that are making the phone calls, that are getting our
land taken away from you, that are calling you up on Internal
Revenue Service, that want to confiscate all of your guns. These
are the same people who womp up charges against you. These are
the very same people that are all involved, every one of them....
These people are not innocent victims."

TALK RADIO FIRE-AWAY AWARD -- Rollye James of KLBJ, Austin

Agreeing with a caller who praised the bumper sticker,
"Where is Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?," talk host James
added that Vice President Al Gore would also have to be shot,
"perhaps with the same bullet." Wishing for a magic bullet cost
James her job at KLBJ. Ironically, the radio station is owned by
the family of Lyndon B. Johnson.

REVOLVING DOOR PRIZE -- Patrick Buchanan and CNN

Buchanan, who has revolved between media and politics
several times already, may well run for president again in four
years. No sooner had he conceded defeat at the '96 convention
than he was on CNN being beseeched by Larry King about his plans
to return to that network: "Will you come back to `Crossfire' in
November?" When Buchanan demurred, King even relayed an on-air
invitation from CNN president Tom Johnson: "It's official -- he
wants you back on `Crossfire.'" Thanks to CNN, Buchanan can wage
his never-ending presidential campaign nightly on national
television.

DEATH BY CENSORSHIP PRIZE -- CNN's Susan Rook

In November, on CNN's "Talkback Live" hosted by Susan Rook,
a caller asked a panel that included comedian Al Franken about
the invisibility in mainstream discourse of leftist intellectual
Noam Chomsky -- currently one of our country's most prolific
writers and most requested lecturers.

FRANKEN: "Susan, we never answered the question about Noam
Chomsky. Why do you think you don't see enough Noam Chomsky on
CNN?"

ROOK: "Are you asking me?"

FRANKEN: "Yeah."

ROOK: "Isn't he dead?"

FRANKEN: "No, no he isn't."

ROOK: "I thought he was dead."

NUZZLE THE HAND THAT FEEDS AWARD -- Richard Bernstein, New York
Times book critic

In a largely negative review of "Up From Conservatism,"
Michael Lind's recent book about why he quit the right-wing
movement, Bernstein objected to the book's criticisms of some
well-funded conservative scholars. Lind is "disagreeable,"
Bernstein wrote -- "disagreeable especially in his dismissal of a
group of distinguished thinkers as little more than the hirelings
of an evil system.... For Mr. Lind, the conservatives are a
dishonest bunch who decree doctrine irrespective of the evidence,
misrepresenting things on the orders of their monied patrons."
Two of the monied patrons lambasted by Lind's book are the
Bradley Foundation and the Smith-Richardson Foundation. In his
review, Bernstein neglected to mention that those two funders had
financed Bernstein's research for his 1994 book attacking
multiculturalism.

WINE-TO-VINEGAR PRIZE -- Public TV station KQED, San Francisco

Top managers at KQED were so eager to produce a documentary
about California winemaker Robert Mondavi that they arranged to
get $50,000 in seed money from a Mondavi-funded center for the
wine industry -- and lined up $150,000 more from the same source
if work on the documentary pleased the center. A public uproar
forced cancellation of the project in mid-November. Although
independence from commercial sponsors is supposed to be a key
reason for public TV's existence, the station still insists there
was nothing wrong with the scheme.

LET THEM WATCH ADS AWARD -- Local TV News

Just two weeks before the November election, Rocky Mountain
Media Watch conducted a same-day survey of 68 local TV newscasts
across the country -- and found very little news about state and
local races. About half of the newscasts contained no such news.
Sixty-one percent of the 173 election stories that aired on
"local" news were about the national presidential race. Since
most Americans say they get their news from TV, what they got
primarily was political ads: There were nearly three times as
many commercials about local and state races as news stories.

FLIPPING FOR BIG MACS AWARD -- Thomas Friedman, New York Times
columnist

In a pair of December columns (datelined from the McDonald's
world headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill.), Friedman argued that the
fast-food chain exemplifies the beneficent potential of a
globalized economy. He hailed McDonald's for showing sensitivity
to various cultures and "democratizing globalization so that
people everywhere feel some stake in how it impacts their lives."
For Friedman, apparently, relishing the corporatization of the
planet is an acquired taste.

Space limits preclude honoring more contestants. But
competition for the 1997 P.U.-litzer Prizes begins soon -- on New
Year's Day.